Soulsavers

March 1 came and went. Since she'd first found out she was a witch, this day was special to her - Ron's birthday. It was strange, so strange, to see the day on her planner with no little reminder next to it. She had bought no gift and had no cake. Even the wizarding world did not have birthday greeting cards for people whose respective birth was three years into the future. It had been, then, nearly eight months since she'd left him and Harry, and everything she knew, behind her, and come back here.

It was strange that she was the one who had felt the need to go back in time, when she thought about it: Harry had so much more to gain by it. She sighed at the unfairness of it all: they all should have had a normal life, attended their last year in the proper order. Dumbledore should have fucking lived long enough to see that they got that much! But even if Hermione had never befriended Harry, she would have had no chance at a normal life, insofar as a witch could have a normal life at all. Dolores Umbridge would have remembered her and gone after her no matter what she did. Hermione could not even get through to Snape, so she doubted there was an incarnation of Umbridge that would not persecute Muggleborns the moment she could get away with it

She and Ron should have had a chance to be boyfriend and girlfriend at school, like Harry and Ginny. Would they have made it if they had? Hermione could not guess, but she did not think so - they had enough happy memories to draw on to make a Patronus in their fifth year. It was just that... they all became too fraught to work as well after the war. Even so, their first kiss should not have been in the creepy Chamber of Secrets, and it should not have been followed by a death in Ron's family that would infect the memory forever.

The march of time also reminded Hermione of another thing: There was not that much left of the year before Severus would be free to go and ruin his life. She'd let her romantic feelings get in the way of saving him, she had not tried hard enough for fear of coming across as desperate or annoying, and if she failed, she was not sure she had it in her to go back another time. She would still like him then, wouldn't she?

And then, some things came sooner than even she could anticipate. Hermione knew the gruesome way the curse would hit Professor Prewett, but had not expected it to happen so soon. It was only March, for Godric's sake! Surely, there was more time than that? Her original cohort had been privileged enough to have teachers who would last for most of the year, who sometimes even got to mark their end-of-year exams. But then, the Voldemort she had known in the nineties had only regained his power four years into her education, and he was much less busy rooting out Dumbledore’s loyalists than he was persecuting Harry. In fact, the people who seemed most affected by the curse in her own time were Voldemort's own people.

For whatever reason, Professor Prewett's twin sons were murdered.

It had never occurred to Hermione to wonder how come the only member of Molly’s extended family she ever met was Aunt Muriel. And now, Professor Prewett had lost two out of three children, as Hermione had known he would. She found that prior warning did not prepare her adequately at all. The fallout was terrifying to behold: the plump and cheerful man who thought he could use tricks to evade and circumvent the curse wandered the halls stinking of drink, oscillating between swearing on his mother that he'll stay at Hogwarts and teach until he's dead, that he’ll come back and teach as a ghost if he must, and then remembering it would mean he would never see his boys again, that it might endanger the only child he had left, Molly, already a mother of three, that it's all his fault, and that they all better give up since there can be no defending the Dark Arts.

The Prewett twins would be remembered as heroes of the First War, Hermione tried to console herself. “Fought like devils, they did,” and all that. And yet, their deaths served no purpose except to fulfil the curse.

A few days passed and the madman formerly known as their Defence teacher could be seen around Hogsmeade, his clothes now hanging off him, pleading to anyone who would listen that he would be the Dark Lord’s most faithful servant if that would bring his children back. He even tried to teach a class of first years that their best option going forward was to not even think of resisting. Ultimately, Dumbledore had to interfere himself; it took both him and Moody to control Mr. Prewett and get him to St. Mungo's. If they'd been willing to use Dark Magic to force him, it would have gone by faster, but Hermione could imagine how demoralising it would be to the onlookers, and how humiliating for Professor Prewett, and her heart was in her throat.

She could see Molly from a distance, watching her father being taken away, a young mother, perhaps already pregnant with her own set of doomed twins. She held her babies close to her chest. Hermione had never appreciated Molly’s courage.  She would have never guessed that Ron’s jovial mother was once the young wife and mother who had watched her father being dragged away, who had attended her brothers’ funeral alone because her father was in no fit state to attend. As children, they all seemed to think Molly could be annoying with her overbearing nature. Did she not understand what was at stake? Only now did Hermione realise how much Molly knew, the whole time.

For the millionth time, Hermione wondered if she’d been better off without her Time Turner. Maybe she should have learned to cope without it, like everyone else seemed to. Live in the present. Go forward, and all that. Maybe Professor McGonagall should have sat her down and explained to her that mucking about with time itself was no way to sate her curiosity or prove herself. Maybe I should have given it to Molly, so that she could be with her loved ones, instead of keeping it for myself.

1997

The Weasleys never got over losing Fred. At first, the jubilations of Voldermot’s final defeat distracted everyone, and then the overwhelming grief. But slowly, time started moving at regular speed, no more endless days and nights celebrating or crying, and it seemed to leave the family behind, even though Hermione knew nearly everyone had lost someone they loved.

Molly and George and Ginny in particular seemed without their spark. Ron matured with astonishing speed, and took it upon himself to fill in at the shop, make sure his mother got out of the house and ate, and remind Ginny she still had her whole life ahead of her. By the time he would come home to Hermione, he would be drained and exhausted, and had minimal patience for Hermione’s own Bellatrix-induced sobs and nightmares, or her Snape-induced guilt and disbelief. In truth, she never cared about Fred all that much, and now she had very little stamina for pretending that she did at the end of the day.

“You think I’m pathetic, don’t you? Weak?” She’d asked him.

“I don’t think anything like that, Hermione, you know I think you’re incredible, I just -”

“When you know the Longbottoms and I went through the same thing, and look at the state they’re in!”

“So that’s your excuse? The Longbottoms? It took four people to do that to them, you know, and it’s not as though I did it to you, so why am I being punished?!”

Ron’d realised what he’d said and tried to backtrack, but Hermione would not let him.

“Excuse for what, you prick?!” She shrieked. She’d done nothing to him except fail to get better, and as far as she could tell, it affected her worse than it did him. It’s not like she did not want to. Of course Severus of 1978 could call her any damned thing he wanted - she had already lived through her so-called soulmate blaming her for not getting over being tortured fast enough. She often asked herself how come she never went insane, or Longbottom-insane in any case. There were times she would have appreciated a reprieve from her lucidity. It only occurred to her much later that perhaps it was the same magic that had protected Harry from the killing curse, that had protected her, somewhat, from the Longbottoms' madness: she had remembered Ron’s screaming “take me instead”, intermingled with her own screams. She never thanked him for it. She never forgot that she broke under the investigation, too. It was merely her good fortune that Bellatrix tried to get Hermione to confess to a different crime. How had Snape done it? How could Hermione live after what she’d suffered and after what she’d learned?

1978

Hermione ran, face streaked with tears, and thought of all the pointless deaths that still lay ahead of her, of all the courage and the strength she never appreciated in the people who would somehow keep fighting, and then rise from it all to raise families and take all the risks of loving and losing. Had Molly felt like she was cursed? Had she ever felt guilty for gambling with her children’s life by allowing them near the Order?

Hermione was still sobbing intermittently by dinnertime, in the Great Hall, next to Severus at his absolute worst, treating her intractable misery as a nuisance. Dumbledore’s sombre speech about why “we must keep fighting, grieve, but never lose heart, and remember the Prewetts”, was punctuated by Severus's scornful huffs, sarcastic commentary, and smug suggestions as to where Dumbledore could shove all this tripe about “grieving and fighting.” She had to turn around to look at him and make sure it was the same Severus who would, before long, switch to the losing side for the girl he was not even friends with anymore – whom he barely seemed to register.

"Can you stop?" He hissed at her. "You look like you should be sectioned, Hermione. It's their problem they fought for the wrong side, do you think we didn't have casualties? He's only your teacher, anyway, what do you even care?”

“You’re absolutely right, Snape! Losing a loved one is a mild inconvenience and caring about my teacher is ridiculous,” she said, though her heaving butchered her comedic timing. “You clearly know everything and are very wise.”

"Your girlfriend is making us all look like Dumbledore loyalists, Cokeworth. Won’t you control her, please?” Rowle said, faux-discreetly.

“Who is we, mate?" Hermione asked Severus alone, ignoring everyone else.

“We, the Slytherins? His followers? Death Eaters?" He answered. But of course.

A cackle of laughter that sounded not unlike Bellatrix escaped Hermione’s body. She wondered if it was possible to die of irony. She wondered how many moments like this one the adult Severus would suffer through in stoic silence in his own time, if she failed to stop him from continuing down his path.

Knowing more than everyone else was quite unlike merely being cleverer. She found herself feeling closer than ever to the original Snape, while so very far from the one sitting beside her. She excused herself from the dinner table, and couldn't care less if everyone else were looking.

Her body carried her outside.

Severus

"Well, at least it'll be a quiet dinner, for a change. Much easier to picture her naked when she's not actually here, don't you think?" Rowle coaxed him, gentleman that he was.

"Do you need quiet to eat and breathe at the same time?" Severus said before he could stop himself.

"Watch it, it's a long way up from Cokeworth for your mommy to come get you," Rowle threatened, his hand under the table, presumably fumbling for his wand.

Severus stood up - he had no idea what had made him do that. Repeated jabs about Cokeworth were just a normal part of their... friendship.

"Professor Slughorn, your seventh years are making a scene!" McGonagall could be heard from the staff table. Useless, stuffed up  cunt.

"Forget it, thinking about your mom killed my appetite," Severus said as he made to leave, himself.

His feet carried him back to the Slytherin Common Room, and from there to the dormitories, and he found himself knocking on the door to the girls' room. He'd heard that boys could visit the girls who were already of age, so hopefully this would not cost him too many house points.

She didn't answer, if she was there at all. Well, to his recollection, when he'd left the dinner table, all the girls bar Hermione were there, so whoever he might walk in on had no business being there, he figured, and opened the door to find Hermione crying even harder than before. Her face was puffy and splotchy, her hair somehow more out of control, and the convulsing sobs made her look quite unbalanced. And still, she was beautiful to him.

"Hermione," he said quietly, not wishing to startle her.

She yelped in terror. "How did you get in here?!"

He shrugged and sat beside her. She transfigured a sock into some tissue paper, and Severus admired her capacity to work her magic even in that state, even if he could still not understand why she took it so hard. "Thought you might want to talk."

She composed herself and looked at him with a strange expression. "I had a boyfriend... back home. He also lost someone. I just remembered how bad it was for his family. I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of that... that perfect gentleman, Rowle. I apologise profusely."

"Do you still care about that boyfriend? Is that why you left Australia? You do realise you never actually said."

"I promise you, Severus, it's over between him and me. He might as well not exist."

Her eyes were still red, and yet they looked so lovely. She'd stopped crying, and she still regarded him with the oddest expression, and the most peculiar choice of words, sometimes. Everyone else seemed so predictable sometimes, but not her.

There was no chance he'd not attract some ire from Slughorn for his behaviour, not to mention Rowle. Might as well make it worthwhile. Or so he would have told himself, if he could think. Instead, he found himself leaning down to kiss her, and ashe realised what he'd done, and that he'd have to apologise and deal with her rejection and potentially with a jealous Barty Crouch, he also realised she'd been kissing him back. No, this can't be. But it was, and it could only be described as being struck by lightning, but if he was a giant or a bloody phoenix or even a dragon who experienced lightning as an overwhelmingly pleasurable sensation everywhere in his body, bestowed upon him by the forces of nature. It's your first kiss and you're busy thinking, he realised, and he felt Hermione's delicate exhalation on his face.